Week One at COP29

As COP29 looks to progress towards goals set out in the UAE Consensus, including phasing out fossil fuels, the 2024 Global Carbon Budget released at the beginning of the climate talks shows a projection of record high fossil fuels of 37.4bn tonnes, up 0.8% from 2023. The report also finds that there is no sign that the world has reached a peak in fossil CO2 emissions, underlining the need for these climate talks to move away from words on a page to effective action.  

Yet, so far, as the UN Climate Summit moves to its second week, reflections of week one negotiations have been overshadowed by significant challenges in geopolitics and a frustrating lack of strong outcomes from negotiations.  

Unsurprisingly, media coverage has largely been negative, with main headlines concerning the president of Azerbaijan referring to oil and gas as ‘gift of god’, as it was revealed that 1700 coal, oil and gas lobbyists are present, making them one of the largest delegations, behind Azerbaijan, Brazil, and Türkiye. 

However, there is still room for optimism. There are estimated to be around 70,000 registered delegates, higher than initially anticipated, with many actors pervading a deep commitment to keep 1.5oC alive. 

At the Climate Action Innovation Zone - which is focused on business engagement and facilitating public private partnerships to help accelerate implementation of climate solutions at speed and scale - there was a palpable energy and clear desire to move the needle.   

Below, a number of key events and outcomes emerging from the first six days in Baku are outlined.  

World Leaders Climate Action Summit 

Earlier in the week, the World Leaders Climate Action Summit (WLCAS) convened 80 Heads of State and Government for a series of high-level events and delivery of national statements. Just two G7 leaders were in attendance, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and United Kingdom PM Keir Starmer. 

During these statements, both the UK and Federative Republic of Brazil, hosts of next year’s COP, announced their updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs 3.0) ahead of the February deadline. UK Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, confirmed a 2035 target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 81% compared to 1990 levels.  

Brazil’s Vice President, Geraldo Alckmin, presented their ambition to reduce emissions by up to 67% by 2035 compared to 2005 levels. This plan relies heavily on the country's forests to meet these goals. There is a focus on combatting deforestation and restoring 12mn hectares of native vegetation by 2030.  

The WLCAS also featured the Summit on Methane and Non-CO2 Greenhouse Gases, co-hosted by the Republic of Azerbaijan, the People’s Republic of China and the USA. These gases are extremely potent and account for around half of climate change; efforts to reduce them are critical for staying on a 1.5oC trajectory. During this Summit, the USA’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a new rule that that requires oil and gas producers to pay a fee of $900 per metric tonne for releasing excess methane emissions, starting in 2026.  

In addition to this, the Leaders’ Summit of the Small Islands Developing States (SIDS) on Climate Change took place. UN Secretary-General António Guterres addressed the Summit, urging SIDS leaders to use their “moral authority to demand action, demand leadership and demand justice.” He reiterated the need for the G20 - who emit around 80% of global emissions – to align their new economy-wide national climate action plans (NDCs 3.0) with 1.5°C, commit significant contributions to the Loss and Damage Fund and to mobilise climate finance. 

Mohamed Muizzu, President of the Maldives, told the Summit that the negotiated UN-ruled carbon markets, which made progress on the first day at COP29, “must be more than trading mechanisms, they must be bridges to technology transfer and sustainable development, especially for SIDs.” 

The high-level event, Africa's Green Momentum: Harnessing Renewables for Industrialisation, drew attention to the ability of renewable energy to meet the continent’s climate targets, as well as its socio-economic and sustainable development objectives.  

It focused on new and innovative partnership models, including the Accelerated Partnership for Renewables in Africa (APRA), the inaugural Investment Forum of which took place in Nairobi last month. 

The event brought together world leaders from African countries such Kenya, Ghana and Sierra Leone and supporting APRA countries like Denmark, Germany and the United States. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres delivered opening remarks highlighting priorities including policy reform and scaled-up financing. He also emphasised the importance of critical materials in revolutionising lives and ensuring access to affordable power. 

Finance, Investment and Trade Day 

COP29 has been branded the ‘finance COP’, with high expectations on reaching a New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). The draft text provided on Thursday was described as “a workable basis for discussion for the first time in the three years of the technical process,” by Yalchin Rafiyev, COP29’s lead negotiator and Azerbaijan’s deputy minister of foreign affairs.   

However, the G77 and China (representing around 130 countries) rejected the framework, reiterating that developing countries need at least $1 trillion per year by the end of the decade to cope with climate change, an amount similar to that of the 2022 annual profits from the 93 largest fossil fuel companies.  

During these negotiations, the Taskforce on Net Zero Policy – an initiative to take forward key elements of the UN Secretary General's High Level Expert Group on the Net Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities (HLEG) – published its inaugural report, taking stock of the global policy environment governing the net zero activities of non-state actors - namely large corporates and financial institutions.  

The research finds that efforts on implementing actionable sustainable finance measures, such as taxonomies and transition plans, have advanced around the globe, yet the overall progress of policy reforms remains insufficient to align the activities of large corporates with a 1.5°C goal.  

UN Secretary-General António Guterres offered his remarks and support of the recommendations made by the report and urged “businesses, financial institutions, cities, regions and more, to work with governments on their national climate action plans, or NDCs, due by COP30.” 

Additionally, the Independent High Level Expert Group (IHLEG) on Climate Finance, which has been supporting the deliberations on the climate finance agenda under successive COP Presidencies since COP26, published its third report presenting pathways to scaling up climate finance to achieve the Paris Agreement goals, how to accelerate delivery, and the importance of tracking and monitoring delivery. 

One of its key messages that must pervade throughout negotiations taking place in COP29: any shortfall in investment before 2030 will place added pressure on the years that follow, creating a steeper and potentially more costly path to climate stability. The less the world achieves now, the more we will need to invest later. 

Other headlines from Finance, Investment and Trade Day include investor groups—with over $10 trillion in assets— announcing that they will unite to develop a shared vision and action plan to accelerate the deployment of private capital into climate markets at the Business, Investment, and Philanthropy Climate Platform (BIPCP) and a $730mn contribution from Sweden to the UN Green Climate Fund (GCF).  

Energy/ Peace, Relief and Recovery 

On Friday, the theme of the day was Energy/ Peace, Relief and Recovery. The COP29 Presidency officially launched three energy initiatives - Global Energy Storage and Grids Pledge, Green Energy Pledge, and the Hydrogen Declaration - and called on Party and non-Party stakeholders for endorsement.  

IEA’s Executive Director Fatih Birol remarked that the Global Energy Storage and Grids Pledge, which is informed by the IEA’s work, “marks an important step forward” in rapidly increasing energy storage and expansion of electricity grids and “we urge governments around the world to make energy storage and resilient grids key priorities as they strive to build more secure, affordable and sustainable energy systems.” 

In addition to this the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) Director-General Francesco La Camera commented: “The COP29 Energy Initiatives are vital to keep the window towards 1.5°C open.” 

At the Energy Transition Investment Forum, co-hosted by IRENA, the COP29 Presidency, and the Ministry of Energy of Azerbaijan, IRENA launched the Accelerated Partnership for Renewable Energy in Central Asia (APRECA) to accelerate renewable energy deployment and foster green industrialisation in Central Asia. The partnership is designed to leverage the collective strengths and resources of Central Asian countries through a robust framework of regional cooperation that aims to fast-track investments, enhance inter-regional connectivity to support renewable energy trade, and maximise socioeconomic benefits 

IRENA, the UAE and the Global Renewables Alliance’s (GRA) event discussed the challenges and opportunities of integrating the UAE Consensus in NDCs 3.0, in particular to reflect the global goal of tripling renewable power capacity by 2030. 

In line with the theme of the day’s discussions, the IEA member governments shared their updated set of principles – known as the IEA Shared Goals – that highlight the priority areas for simultaneously ensuring energy security and advancing clean energy transitions. 

The Global Methane Pledge Ministerial Meeting took place, with Under-Secretary-General of the UN and Executive Director of UNEP, Inger Andersen, underlining “the next round of NDCs is our last chance to set a course that avoids overshooting 1.5°C and minimises further climate horrors. Action on super pollutants, including methane, is essential for this course: to slow global temperature rise, buy time for decarbonisation to show effect and reduce the need for expensive adaptation efforts.” 

The Pledge unites 159 participating countries and the European Commission to achieve a reduction in methane emissions 30% below 2020 levels by 2030.  Data from UNEP, released on Friday, shows that the Methane Alert and Response System that identifies major methane leaks issued 1,200 notifications over major emissions, however it prompted only 15 responses. 

Science, Technology and Innovation / Digitalisation Day 

On Saturday, the first COP Digitalisation Day hosted the launch of the Declaration on Green Digital Action, endorsed by more than 90 governments and over 1,000 members of the digital tech community, including companies, civil society organisations, and international and regional organisations.  

The Declaration calls for sector-wide collaboration to utilise digital technologies to accelerate climate action while reducing the carbon and pollution footprints of tech manufacturing and tackling the growing problem of e-waste. 

The UN International Telecommunications Union’s (ITU) Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin commented, “This milestone moment for Green Digital Action at COP29 should propel us forward with the shared belief that we can and must reduce the environmental footprint of digital technologies while leveraging their undeniable potential to tackle the climate crisis.”  

The Climate Action Innovation Zone 

The Climate Action Innovation Zone returned for the fourth year as an affiliated event of COP29. Running for three days in the Baku Marriott Hotel Boulevard, Baku’s largest conference centre, it was the business focal point of COP, convening thousands of stakeholders from across the innovation ecosystem, including finance, energy and heavy industry, alongside policymakers and the UN. It included three Flagship Forums as well as a series of roundtables and side events focused on accelerating the speed and scale of action. 

The Sustainable Innovation Forum facilitated cross sector collaboration, partnerships, capacity building and problem solving across the innovation ecosystem of technology and solution providers, investors, governments, cities and change makers. 

The Agri-Food Systems Summit addressed the urgent need for alignment in strategies, commitments and transformation roadmaps across the agricultural sector, as well as spotlighting the innovative technologies that will define the leaders of tomorrow. 

The Hydrogen Transition Summit highlighted the challenges facing hydrogen projects and the global hydrogen economy. It explored the innovative solutions to overcome these barriers and enable the rapid growth of the Hydrogen ecosystem. 

Couldn’t join us in person? The plenary agenda sessions for all three Flagship Forums will be available on-demand over the coming days. Register your details here to ensure you receive our latest updates. 

Preparing for Week Two 

As the second week of COP29 swings into action with Human Development / Children and Youth / Health / Education Day, progress must pick up pace, most notably to end the deadlock on the new climate finance goal.  

The rest of this week will see conversations focused on food and agriculture; urbanisation, transport and tourism; and nature and biodiversity / indigenous people / gender equality / oceans and coastal zones. 

A reminder of words of UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell, “Now it is the time to show that global cooperation is not down for the count. So I urge you all, let us rise together.”